PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday ordered disposal of cases pending under Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act by September 20 this month.
He also asked officials to frame rules for providing job on compassionate grounds to one dependent of a SC & ST in the event of untimely death.
Kumar instructed Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Welfare departments Secretary Prem Kumar Meena to get in touch with officials of the concerned departments for speedy disposal of the cases, an official release said.
The chief minister also issued direction to complete the investigation expeditiously and take necessary action against the laggards, it said.
Kumar said this while addressing a meeting of state-level vigilance and monitoring committee which has been constituted under The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1995, which has been amended from time to time.
He addressed the meeting through video-conference from CM secretariat.
Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Welfare department minister Ramesh Rishideo, MPs- Vijay Manjhi, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Prince Raj and Alok Kumar Suman- and a host of legislators and peoples representatives also expressed their views through video-conferencing.
This was the first occasion when Kumar and Manjhi were interacting after the latter announced on Wednesday that his Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) is joining the NDA coalition in the state.
Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan's brother Pashupati Kumar Paras and nephew Prince Raj, both Lok Sabha MPs, also participated in the meeting.
But, since it was an official meeting no political deliberations took place.
Two separate wings of law and order and investigation have been made at the police station level for swift and timely probe, Kumar said.
He also asked law department officials to expedite the process for appointment of special public prosecutors in the special courts and gave a stern message to get rid of those not discharging duties properly.
He said that DGP should carry out police station wise review of the cases related to the SC and ST citizens.
The government has been running several schemes to bring them (SC and ST) into the mainstream besides working for their development, Kumar said and asked members and officials to consider formulating more schemes for their development.
Earlier, the departments Secretary informed in detail about the compliance of the last meeting of the state level vigilance and monitoring committee.
Other officials also gave point-wise presentation during the meeting.
Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar, Director General of Police (DGP) Gupteshwar Pandey, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Amir Subahni, CMs Principal Secretary Chanchal Kumar and a host of other senior officials were present on the occasion.